


ALTERNATIVE

by frantstic



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Assisted Suicide, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Fluff, M/M, Please enjoy!, Violence, Vomiting, War, Weapons, also under EXTREME edits, and then go under edits, i will mark them when they've been edited!, most chapters are posted in their original states, this is fun i promise lol, trigger warnings for:
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2020-11-07 18:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20821547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frantstic/pseuds/frantstic
Summary: For years, scientists have speculated that alternate universes have existed, where the entire nature of the world we know is different. But the biggest question has been how to travel between these universes. Dan Howell and Phil Lester solve this mystery on accident. They wake up one day in one of these alternate universes, which happened to be an apocalyptic landscape where nuclear warfare has turned the two sides of the Earth against each other, and the courses of fate have changed YouTubers into key players in this massive war. As Dan and Phil struggle to comprehend what they’ve stumbled into, they meet versions of their friends and colleagues so unfamiliar they’re barely the people they knew. But when they meet this world’s versions of themselves, they’re forced to confront something they’ve not faced in four years. Because after all, even the most alternate of realities can have overwhelming similarities.





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! This is the first four chapters of my fic that I wrote for the PBB! Please be sure to check out my beta Emily (tumblr: unabashedphanwhispers) and my artist Eliza (tumblr: fay-pepper), without whom I wouldn't have been able to pull this off! Eliza's artwork for this piece is truly amazing, so please please check it out on the PBB blog! I will be trying to update this every week, I do have all the chapters, they just need to be refined, so look out for the next chapter soon! Thank you, and enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan and Phil are ambushed on an important mission.
> 
> TW: reference to gun, violence, knocking people out

Phil wasn’t normally this terrified. 

He did this kind of thing all the time, and he shouldn’t have been so scared. This was supposed to be a simple mission, in and out, quick and easy. And that was supposed to be it. But this time he could feel something hanging in the air, an anticipation as thick as smoke, and it was making his heart beat faster than it should. 

As if he could tell what was going on, Dan wrapped his fingers around Phil’s wrist. “You okay?” he whispered, his voice muffled by the cloth covering his mouth. 

“I’m fine.” Phil met Dan’s eyes. They were full of disbelief. “I just feel a bit… antsy. Kind of sick, even.”

“Everything’s going to be okay. We do this all the time.” 

Phil nodded, trying to convince himself, but Dan didn’t seem to believe him. He laced his fingers through Phil’s and gave his hand a squeeze. 

“We’ll be alright, I promise.” And Dan really looked like he believed it.

Phil’s communicator buzzed from the inside of his pocket. On the screen was a message from Louise: go time. 

“Ready?” Dan asked. 

Phil nodded, trying to swallow his fear away. “Let’s go.”

Dan and Phil pushed themselves onto the ledge of the roof. From this height, Phil could see the entire city, a London plagued by darkness, except for the few glimmering lights on the street or in the houses still full of people. It made Phil sad to think about a world where his city was alight every night, where there was no war or no threat of destruction looming. Maybe that world was out there, but it wasn’t his. Not yet, anyway. 

Dan let go of Phil’s hand and took a quiet leap off the ledge and onto the roof next door, his shoulder collided with the pavement as he rolled gracefully forward. Phil followed suit, landing with considerably less grace, wishing he still had the agility and strength of his younger companion. 

“You good?” Dan asked as Phil stood and rubbed his throbbing shoulder. Phil could tell Dan was grinning from beneath his mask.

“Yes, yes,” he grumbled.

“Good.” Dan pushed against Phil’s shoulder playfully. “Let’s pick some locks.”

From his pocket he pulled a leather pouch of small, silver tools with different heads. Phil had been too antsy to sit down and learn about what they all did and how to use them, but Dan’s expert fingers made quick work of the lock on the door leading into the building. He opened it carefully, gun held in front of him, but he was greeted only with an empty, dark stairway. 

“They weren’t expecting us?” Phil mumbled. 

“I guess not.” Dan’s brows were knit together. “Proceed with caution anyway.”

They crept down the staircase cautiously, holding their guns and flashlights at eye level. Phil’s heart skipped a beat with every corner they turned, scared of what might be on the other side. When they turned the final corner they were met with a door, large and imposing. Dan dropped to his knees and went to work on the lock, while Phil swept his flashlight around the landing. The space was quiet except for the metallic twinkling on Dan’s tools on the lock, and Phil’s short, rapid breaths. 

“You get it, yet?” Phil asked, drumming his fingers on the barrel of his gun. 

“Almost. This one’s not as easy.” Dan fiddled with the lock some more, until he gave it a final turn and the doorknob clicked, the sound echoing through the stairway. 

Holding his breath, Phil followed Dan into what might have been an office space of some kind, with rows of cubicles and desks strewn with debris. All of the computers were either broken beyond repair or stolen. 

“Why would they take up here?” Dan mused, shuffling through papers on one of the desks. 

“It’s inconspicuous,” Phil offered. “I wouldn’t look for Western spies in here.”

“Well, they should be here somewhere. Or they should’ve left something valuable. Let’s split up.”

“Are you sure?”

Dan smiled. “I’ll be fine. And so will you.”

Dan pulled the mask away from his mouth, left a hasty kiss on Phil’s cheek, and disappeared behind another row of cubicles. Phil steadied his breath and trudged forward, overturning every piece of paper he could find and looking under every desk. Everything seemed so normal. The company must’ve sold some kind of dieting vitamin before it was abandoned, according to all the files. The computers were old and the phones were blocky office lines, so it must’ve been a while since the place was in business. With a start, Phil realized that it could’ve meant the Western spies had been here for a long time, and they’d only just caught them now. 

_All the more reason to eliminate them before they can pass on any more information_, Phil thought to himself after checking under a fourth desk. Nothing. 

He was starting to lose hope and considering finding Dan again when his communicator beeped again. He pulled it out of his pocket, an SOS alert flashing across the screen. The ID at the bottom said the signal was from Dan’s communicator. 

Before Phil could call out his name, someone tore his mask off his face and covered his mouth and nose with a sweet smelling cloth. Phil’s vision went black as his knees collapsed and he fell into a pair of strong, gruff arms. 

When Phil woke up, he was in a small office, Dan’s body pressed against his, his face buried in scratchy carpet. Phil pushed himself up onto his elbows, still woozy from the chloroform. His eyes fell on three pairs of combat boots standing a few feet away. He drew his gaze up to his captors’ faces. 

The three men hadn’t bothered with masks. The one in the middle, who Phil supposed must’ve been the leader, was strong and muscular, with fierce, dark eyes that bore into Phil’s skull. The one on the left looked a bit like Dan before he had dyed his hair, but his features were sharper than Dan’s, and the look on his face was full of malice. The third man on the right was slim and wiry, with thick black hair piled on his head and a slight grin on his lips, like he was having fun. They all had small American flags pinned to their jackets, and large guns fitted on their waistbands.

"We heard you were looking for us,” said the one in the middle, his American accent thick and imposing. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Who are you?” Phil asked. He glanced at Dan, whose eyes were still screwed shut, his mouth hanging open slightly. 

“Who do you think we are?” the man said. 

“I don’t know.” Phil glanced at their faces again before turning back to Dan, lightly tapping his cheek. “I don’t recognize you.”

“We won’t show up in your files,” the leader told him. “You won’t find us anywhere.”

“You’re here, right now,” Phil pointed out. “And you haven’t killed us yet, so there must be a reason for that?”

“We’re here to pose a warning,” the man said. “Our President wanted to send a message.”

“What’s the message?”

“Just that we’re here.” The man squatted so he was on Phil’s level. “And we’re watching.”

He said it so nonchalantly, but the words pricked the back of Phil’s neck. “But who _are_ you?”

“We’re the Angels. I came up with the name, by the way. It’s not exactly badass, but it means something.” He stood up and stepped forward until the sole of his combat boot was inches from Phil’s hands. “We’re _protectors_. And we’ll protect the West from people like you.”

“Then why not kill us?” Phil asked. 

The man shrugged. “Who knows. Those weren’t the orders.” 

Something buzzed from inside the man’s pocket. He pulled out his own communicator and glanced at the screen. 

“Looks like it’s time to go. I hope to never see you again, Phil Lester. Because orders or no, it will be the end for you.” 

The man beckoned his friends to follow him from the office room, leaving Phil collapsed on the floor, cradling Dan’s head in his hands like a Pietas. Dan’s eyelids fluttered open as the door to the office slammed shut. 

“What happened?” Dan muttered.

Phil subconsciously brushed Dan’s curls away from his forehead. “I think we’re in trouble.”


	2. DAN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan wakes up in an unfamiliar world with someone unfamiliar next to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW FOR: reference to guns
> 
> This chapter has been edited and is now in its final form! Please enjoy, and be sure to let me know what you think in the comments, leave a kudos, and follow me on tumblr @ phanniedyke!

Dan wasn’t used to waking up with someone next to him.

But when he rolled over early that morning, there was no denying that someone was in his way, their body covered in all of _his_ blankets, face turned away from Dan.

Dan touched two fingers to his temple, expecting it to be pounding. It seemed he only brought boys home when he was drunk nowadays. But his head felt fine. It was the only thing that did. A wave of unease hit Dan as he turned over to face the man in his bed. He thought he could smell something familiar, and it was making his stomach turn. He slowly reached for the white duvet draped over the man’s shoulder…

_Hold on_. White duvet? Dan rubbed his eyes, but the duvet stayed the same color. Dan suddenly felt uneasy for an entirely different reason. He pushed himself up, leaning back on his hands and gaping at the room in front of him, which was definitely not his own. Or… maybe it was? The color of the walls and the furniture was all the same and the windows were still on the opposite wall but everything else was so different it was like Dan had never lived there at all. 

His desk had three monitors instead of just one, and one of the screens was open to what looked like a live map of Europe, with clumps of red color gathering around the coast of Italy. The rest of the desk was covered in what looked like paper maps and thick manila folders. But that was far from the most alarming part. The walls were stripped of all of Dan’s artwork and replaced with an assortment of weapons. There were rows of sharpened knives hanging on the left wall, the largest one the size of Dan’s forearm, and the smallest no bigger than a playing card. There was a sniper rifle leaning against his wardrobe, a set of three pistols mounted on the right wall, and another lying atop his bedside table. His stomach still turning, Dan looked up. There was a machine gun hanging above his head, with a magazine bigger than his fist. 

He yelped, pushing himself out of bed, his bare feet sinking into the carpet. He looked down. There was a small rusty stain near his left foot that he was pretty sure was blood. He covered his mouth, feeling bile rise in his throat. 

“What’s going on?” The other person in the bed was awake, voice raspy. He sat up, his hair mussed from sleep and eyelids heavy. “Dan? What are you doing? Where are we?”

Dan felt like he was for sure going to throw up now.

Phil was staring up at him, eyes wide and blue. His hair was pushed off his forehead into a quiff, messy from sleep. It had been a long time since Dan had woken up next to him, and seeing him here, like this, was tugging on Dan’s heart. He had told himself for four years that he didn’t care anymore. He and Phil were business partners. The flirting and the glances, they weren’t real. They never had been. But now, the fear was sinking through Dan’s bones, mixing a cocktail of terror and heartache in his stomach.

“Dan?”

Dan ran a hand through his hair, the air coming out of his lungs in deep, wheezing breaths. “I don’t know where we are. We’re in my room but… not my room. I don’t know.”

Phil looked around, frown growing deeper every time his gaze landed on another one of the weapons. He slowly pushed aside the unfamiliar duvet and got out of bed, wearing nothing but his pants. Dan felt his face go red, and quickly looked away as Phil strode towards the maps on Dan’s desk. 

“What is this?” Phil asked. He held up one of the larger maps to the sunlight streaming through the thick curtains. It was a map of America that had Los Angeles marked off in a big red circle. Sharp black lines filled the Atlantic Ocean, stopping before they hit the East Coast. 

Dan ran his finger across one of the black lines. “They look like battle plans.”

Phil set the map back down on the desk. Dan turned to one of the monitors and pressed the escape button on the keyboard. 

“What are you doing?” Phil hissed.

“Investigating.”

The desktop was empty, just a light blue screen, with only a column of blue folders lining the left side of the screen. There didn’t seem to be access to any browsers or email applications. The date blinked in the upper right hand corner. March 19th, 2016. The same date on his phone when he had fallen asleep last night. Dan clicked on one of the folders, labelled with “battle plans.” It was encrypted, all of the documents littered with unrecognizable symbols, some of them locked from view completely. 

“I think,” Dan started, “we’re in some kind of war.”

“Against who?”

Dan’s eyes fell on another picture on the desk, a black and white shot of a woman with long hair in a ponytail, swinging in midair as the photo captured her looking over her shoulder. It looked like a paparazzi shot, something taken by someone hidden. Dan frowned at the picture. _He knew her_. 

Before he could offer an answer, someone rapped on the door, startling both of them. Phil set the map down on the table quickly, as if he were worried he’d get in trouble for holding it.

“Howell, Lester, meeting’s in an hour! Hurry it up in there!”

Dan and Phil exchanged a glance. The voice on the other side of the door was harsher and colder than they were used to, but they would have recognized it anywhere. 

“Say something,” Dan commanded through gritted teeth. Phil’s eyes widened, incredulous, as he pointed at his chest. 

“Why me?”

Dan didn’t have an answer to that. The pounding on the door started again.

“Are you two okay?”

Dan winced and opened his mouth. “Louise?”

There was a pause. “Yes?”

Dan looked back at Phil one more time. He nodded. “Uh, where are we?”

Another pause. And then: “I’m coming in.”

The door flew open before Dan could prepare himself. But when he saw the person in front of him, he knew that no amount of preparation could have readied him. 

This Louise looked nothing like the friend he knew, just as this room looked nothing like his. The woman in front of him still had Louise’s _face_, sure, but that was the only shred of resemblance. The Louise that Dan knew was all pink and glitter and dresses, but this woman in front of him… she was the exact opposite. She had harsh black makeup against pale skin, and a septum piercing glittering in her nose. Her hair, dyed such a bright white it almost glowed under the fluorescent light, was piled on top of her head with a black bandana, and she was wearing black pants with pockets up and down the legs, a white tank top, and a heavy black jacket with a union jack in grayscale on one arm and three stars on the other. She also had a pistol fitted into a holster on her belt, which she drew and clicked the safety off as soon as her eyes landed on Dan and Phil. 

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, her voice low and menacing. “Is this some kind of trick from the west? Where are the generals?”

Dan opened his mouth but his words were stuck in his throat. The barrel of not-Louise’s gun was staring him down with one cold metal eye. 

“Louise it’s us,” Phil said, his voice quivering. “It’s Dan and Phil, please.”

Dan had never heard so much fear behind Phil’s words. Louise must have heard it too, because she lowered her gun slightly, so it was still poised in front of her but out of their faces. Her eyes ran up and down, brows dipping. Phil crossed his arms over his bare chest. 

“So what, then? Why do you look like that?” she asked, jerking her chin towards them. There was something utterly terrifying about her, something that Dan couldn’t quite put his finger on, that went beyond the guns and the harsh eyeliner and the combat boots. “Did the West forget that you two have tattoos?!”

“Tattoos?” The question was a breath from Phil’s lips, so quiet Dan could barely hear it.  
Louise’s grip tightened on her gun. “Fine. If you’re really Howell and Lester, answer this. When’s your anniversary?”

Dan’s shoulders dropped. He looked to the wall, trying to shift his eyes as far away from Phil as possible. 

“What? I got you there?” Louise sounded triumphant. 

Phil cleared his throat. “October 19th.”

Louise dropped her gun to her side. The room was achingly quiet.

“You’re right,” she finally said. “But that can’t be… unless…”

She took a step forward, putting her gun back into its holster with one hand and reaching up to touch Dan’s curls with her other. He wanted to push her away but thought she would shoot him if he did. 

“Unless what?” Phil asked. 

Louise shook her head decisively, as if she was shaking herself from a daze. “Felix has to know about this. Come on.”

She strode to the wardrobe, pulling black and white clothes (everything here was in perfect monochrome, and although Dan was a fan of the aesthetic, it struck him as odd) off the hangers and tossing them at Dan and Phil. “Get dressed. You’re about to meet the leader of the Eastern Empire.”

She nodded a little bit, to herself, and left the room, pulling the door closed loudly behind her. 

Phil picked up a pair of black jeans from the floor and stepped into them quickly.

“What are you doing?” Dan hissed. 

“I’m getting dressed.” His voice wasn’t giving anything away about how he was feeling about all this. 

“Are you crazy?” he said. “We can’t go out there. That’s not Louise. This is… it’s…”

“It’s _what_?” Phil interrupted. “What the hell is this? I’m just as scared as you, but I don’t think we have a choice. We should just do what she says.”

Dan’s hand curled into a fist at his side. He knew Phil was right, but his heart was beating so loudly in his ears it was drowning out all sense of logic. He picked up the other pair of trousers and shrugged them on, hoping that they were doing the right thing, and that this person who looked so much like their friend wasn’t going to kill them. 

One they were both dressed, Phil put a hand on the doorknob. He looked back at Dan before he turned it and stepped into the hallway. There was a muffled chorus of voices from down the hall that stopped when Dan closed the door behind him and Phil. Dan watched the back of Phil’s head carefully as they continued into the living room, where an odd assortment of people sat at their dining table. 

The living room was covered in almost an impossible amount of maps and TV screens, but that wasn’t what pulled at Dan’s attention. Not-Louise was seated at the table, and next to her was not-PJ, and a young girl. All three of them were staring at Dan and Phil, scrutinizing them with hard, narrowed eyes

“What did I tell you?” Louise said to the other two. “I think she did it.”

“But if _she_ did, then why are they here?” PJ said. He had gotten the same type of stark, military makeover as Louise, with his hair was shaved close to his scalp, and piercings up and down the length of his ears. Peeking out of his jacket, the same heavy black one with patches as Louise, were trails of tattoo ink decorating his wrists. His voice had the same hard edge to it as Louise’s. 

“We don’t know anything about this technology or how it works,” the girl cut in. She couldn’t have been more than 20 years old, with dyed grey hair cut into a short bob, freckles, and long, thin fingers laced together on the table. She was wearing the black jacket too, but there were two stars instead of three on her right arm. “Maybe it… leaked or something, and they ended up here.”

“_Leaked_? Gemma, I don’t think that’s possible.” Louise leaned forward. “But you’re right. This is delicate territory.”

“So how do we deal with it?” PJ asked. 

“I’m not sure that we…” Louise trailed off when she saw Dan’s face. He could feel his mouth falling further open with every word they said. Louise sighed. “Sit down,  
Howell, er, Dan. Both of you. I can assume you’re confused.”

Dan laughed a little. “Confused. Yeah. That’s the word I’m thinking of right now.” He and Phil sat across from the other three, like they were being interrogated. 

“What are you doing here, PJ?” Phil asked. “Both of you?”

Louise and PJ looked at each other. “We live here,” PJ said. “How different is your universe?”

“_Universe_?” Maybe it was something about the way Louise and PJ were looking at him, like he was as stupid as a child, or maybe it was the girl sitting at his breakfast table, looking as casual as if it were her own home, but Dan’s blood was starting to boil. His fingers closed into a fist at his side. “In my universe, I don’t have weapons hanging on my wall and Louise doesn’t have a _nose piercing_. And there aren’t teenage girls sitting at my breakfast table! Who are you, anyway? Are you a _fan_?”

The girl looked offended. “A fan of what?” 

“Dan, leave her alone,” PJ said. “This is Gemma, and she’s your Major General, okay?”

“What?!” Dan exclaimed. “What does that even fucking _mean_?”

“It means you’re in another universe, an alternate one,” Louise said calmly. “You been transported somehow, by someone to our universe. We know… certain people have been working on the technology but we never imagined it would get this far.”

Dan had heard about parallel universes. He had seen Doctor Who. He knew that every decision he made supposedly created two possible universes, one just slightly  
different from his own, where he had decided to eat a different kind of cereal that morning or something. But it was just supposed to be a theory, not something that happened to him of all people. He didn’t live in a science fiction novel. 

“So what makes this an alternate universe, huh?” Dan asked, trying to stay calm. “What different thing had to happen to make you guys live in my house and get punk makeovers?”

The others shared an anxious glance. 

“Does it have something to do with the war?” Phil blurted. 

“War? How do you know about that?” Louise frowned. “Did someone tell you?”

“All that stuff all over the bedroom.” Phil pointed down the hall. “It’s pretty clear that there’s some kind of war.”

Dan held his breath. Louise sighed. “Well, you’re right. We’re at war.

“With who?” Dan asked. 

“The Western Republic.”

“_Who_?”

Louise sighed again. “A confederation of the states of America, Canada, and South America.”

“America?” Dan sputtered. “Why?”

“We don’t really know,” Louise said, her voice thin and strained. “One day the bombs just… started raining. They hit Italy first, and then Morocco. And then the East knew it had no choice but to ally with each other or die. Now we’re the Eastern Empire. And you two are the generals of the Royal Army.”

“Generals?” Dan’s head was spinning. He could barely run a mile without collapsing and now he was supposedly an army general? He and Phil? “But why us? We’re just…”  
He looked at Phil. “We’re just YouTubers.”

“YouTube, yeah.” Gemma spoke up, clearly relieved to make the connection. “That’s how you got the job. We mainly use YouTube as a military website now, or here, I guess. People make videos about the war to incentivize other people follow them and join their armies. And you two used to have quite the presence.”

“So YouTube in this alternate universe is like, a propaganda thing?” Dan said, massaging his temples.

Gemma shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose.”

Louise glanced at her watch and sighed. “It’s almost time for the meeting. PJ, do you know where Howell and Lester have gone?”

Dan got the feeling they weren’t talking about him and Phil. “Out jogging I think,” PJ said. “Or doing some surveillance. Or maybe they… switched.” 

Suddenly, a pounding on the front door shook the apartment walls. 

“Is that… them?” Dan asked. 

But Louise frowned and shook her head. “No, that’s the task force. They’re here for the meeting. PJ, get a message out to Howell and Lester, okay? Tell them they’ve got to hurry up with… whatever they’re doing.”

PJ nodded, a smirk on his lips, and jumped up from the table, scurrying down the hallway and into Phil’s door. Or, he supposed, it was PJ’s door now. Louise got up too, her combat boots thumping against the hardwood as she strode down the stairs to answer the door. Only Gemma remained, sitting across from Dan and Phil like she was giving an interview. Dan felt her grey eyes watching him closely, trying to determine what he was thinking.

Dan glared back at her. “What?” he bit. 

She shook her head. “The way you look at me. Who exactly are you guys in your world?”

“Not the kind of people to have girls like you sitting at our breakfast table.”

Phil let out a small huff from next to Dan, but Dan didn’t dare look at him. Gemma’s eyes widened even more. “Wait a second, are you two not --”

She was cut off by the front door squeaking on its hinges and the frantic murmuring of more young voices leaking through the hall. Gemma stood up, pushing the chair back. 

“Who is it?” Dan said. 

Gemma looked back at him and Phil. “Your army.”


	3. PHIL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan and Phil meet their army and try to handle a delicate situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: none
> 
> This chapter has been edited and is now in its final form! Please enjoy, and be sure to let me know what you think in the comments, leave a kudos, and follow me on tumblr @ phanniedyke!

Phil was trying to hold it together. 

He found that the easiest way to do that was just to stay quiet and let Dan interrogate these versions of Louise and PJ that he didn’t recognize, and this young girl who belonged there more than he and Dan did. Gemma, Phil remembered she was called, looked somehow familiar and alien at the same time. At first glance, she looked like dozens of the girls that lined up at their meet and greets, posing for selfies, with eyeliner wings and dyed hair and nervous smiles. But when he looked closer he could see the difference between Gemma and his fans. Gemma’s eyes had a heaviness to them, like her brows were carrying the weight of this war by themselves. And she wore the gun around her waist like she was meant to, and she seemed more eager to shoot them than hug them. 

“I’ll answer the door.” Gemma stood up, pushing her chair back. She hurried out of the kitchen and down the hall towards the voices.

As soon as she was gone, Dan leaned forward, burying his fingers in his hair, propping his head up on the kitchen table with his elbows. Phil hovered his hand over his shoulder before moving it back into his lap. 

“Are you okay?” he decided to ask. 

“I’m fine.” Dan’s voice was icy. 

“Well, I’m not okay,” Phil said, playing with the hem of his t-shirt. “I don’t know what’s going on and I’m scared.”

Dan lifted up his head to respond, but luckily he was interrupted before he could. Louise had reentered, leading a pack of six people behind her, including Gemma. All of them were vaguely young, some had colored hair, all had piercings. They looked like the kids who would wait in Dan and Phil’s meet and greet lines, just wearing combat-grade clothing and holding guns at their waists. Too young to be fighting in a war, that was for sure. What Gemma had said about YouTube’s role in this universe was starting to make sense to Phil. Maybe the alternate versions of these kids were fans. But here they were something… different.

Dan stood when they entered the dining room and Phil followed suit, feeling too awkward to stay seated. Louise leaned against the back wall as they filed in, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at Dan and Phil pointedly. Phil cleared his throat, as if he had something to say, but no words came out. 

“So, who are you?” said one of them finally asked, a girl with long blonde hair in plaits on her head. She had stripes of dark paint under her eyes and a black and white Union Jack bandana around her neck. She stepped forward imposingly as she said it, her chin cocking back to look Phil in the eye. “She better not have sent you to spy on us.”

“It’s fine, Jack,” Gemma interrupted, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “We already went through this. They’re fine.”

“But who are they?” Jack wasn’t backing down. “How are we certain this isn’t a trick of the West, hm? Have you talked to them, Pentland?”

“I’ve talked to them enough,” Louise said. “They’re different… but it’s them. Howell and Lester from another universe.”

Jack leaned back on her heels, arms crossing. “But the West is the only one with this kind of technology.”

“They hardly know what the Western Republic is,” Louise told her, gesturing at Dan and Phil. “They’re not spies. They can’t be.”

“We’re not,” Phil blurted, feeling as if he had to chime in. 

Jack and the others all looked to him, as if they’d forgotten he was there. 

“I promise,” Phil assured them again. “I don’t even know who this she is…” 

Louise grimaced. “How about we all sit down, hm? Gemma, could you get us all some tea?”

Minutes later Phil found himself on the couch in the living room, Gemma handing him a mug of dark black tea. Dan was sitting next to him, sipping from his own mug, brows furrowed, some emotion that Phil couldn’t read etched across his face. Confusion? Or anger? Louise was on his other side, typing frantically on her laptop. 

The rest of the group was at the table, more maps piled in front of them. They were pointing frantically at black lines and red splotches, arguing about attacks and defenses, and where to plant which task forces. From the small snippets of conversation he could understand, Phil came to realize that America’s attacks were damaging Europe faster than they could defend it. 

Gemma saw him watching them. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, giving him a weary smile. “They’ve got everything under control. And we’ll find a way to get you home.”

“Thanks.” Phil smiled back, bringing the rim of his mug to his lips. 

“I meant to ask earlier,” Gemma started, casting a glance in Dan’s direction. “But in your world, are you two not, uh… together?”

Phil set his tea down, his stomach rolling. Louise looked up from her laptop. Dan stared straight ahead at the wall. 

“Um, no. Not for four years, anyway,” Phil said. “You guys know about that?”

“Of course.” Gemma looked at him blankly. “Why wouldn’t we?”

Phil opened his mouth to reply but Dan got there first. “Because it’s none of your business, maybe?” 

“Things are different in our world,” Phil said, silently pleading Dan not to go any further. “You guys are less…involved in our lives.”

Jack piped up, apparently having been listening in. “What do you mean?”

Phil rubbed the back of his neck, trying to figure out what to say without making Dan more angry than he already was. “Well, there’s no war or anything. Dan and I just… we just make videos. That aren’t propaganda. And people like you watch them. And…”

“And try to worm their way into our lives in any way they can.” Dan crossed his arms, leaning further back in the couch. 

“Well, what does that mean?” Jack asked. 

“It means that in a parallel universe, we tried to make it work until kids like all of you thought you were entitled to something you weren’t,” Dan snapped. He shot from his seat, his voice rising. “And now it’s over.”

He stalked from the room. The sound of his bedroom door slamming bounced through the hallway. 

“Sorry,” Phil said. “It’s just not something he likes to talk about.”

It wasn’t something either of them liked to talk about, actually. Phil just knew how to discuss it more civilly. Phil knew it was harder on Dan than it was for him. Dan had barely come to terms with his own sexuality by the time everything started to spiral out of control. Phil knew it hadn’t helped Dan to have millions of eyes on him while he was still figuring out who he was and what their relationship was, and that was why he ended things. Which made sense. But there was still something lodged in Phil’s throat whenever it was brought up, a pain leftover from all those years ago that refused to go away. 

Jack was frowning. Gemma looked a little hurt. Louise sighed from next to Phil, shutting her laptop. 

“We’ll leave you all to discuss what you’ll be telling Felix,” Louise said. “Howell and Lester should be back soon. I hope.”

She stood up and grabbed Phil by the wrist. She pulled him all the way to Dan’s bedroom door, where she knocked fiercely. 

“Open up, Howell.”

Phil didn’t think Dan would’ve opened the door if Louise didn’t sound so terrifying. But her voice was laced with such anger that the door swung open quickly, Dan standing behind the threshold, frowning. Louise pushed past him.

“I don’t know if you need help understanding how this parallel universe thing works,” Louise started. “But those kids out there aren’t the same ones you think you know.”

“I --” 

“_Those_ kids risk their lives every day for the alternate versions of you two,” she continued. “And if you speak to them like that, I swear to God I’ll kick you both out of this house.”

Dan’s mouth was open. Phil’s didn’t dare say anything back.

“Do you understand?” Louise asked them.

“Yeah,” Phil said quickly. Dan nodded, hesitating before he did. Phil could still see the anger brewing behind his eyes. 

“Good.” Louise pulled the chair out from under Dan’s desk and sat down, leaning forward so her elbows balanced on her knees. “Then we have to talk about something else.”

Dan wandered to his bed, sitting on the corner, crossing his arms across his chest. “What?”

“We have a meeting today with Felix.”

“Felix?” Phil asked. “That isn’t… Felix Kjellberg, is it?”

“It is. Is he in your world too?”

Dan and Phil shared a look. “Yeah, he is,” Dan said. 

“Well, here he’s the leader of the Eastern Empire. One of his assistants should be calling us soon.”

“Assistant?” Phil asked.

Louise waved her hand. “He’s too busy to meet with us directly.”

“I guess that would make sense,” Dan muttered. “What’s the meeting about?”

“Strategy.” Louise let out a sigh when she said it. “We need new tactics if we want to win this war. And now we have something new to do… bring you two home.”

“Well, how do we do that?” Dan asked. 

“We’ll have to see what comes out of this call. Otherwise–”

Louise was interrupted by a loud noise from downstairs, and a flurry of excited voices from down the hall. She stood up, hands on her waist. 

“Is that…” Phil asked hesitantly. 

“Yeah. Come on you two, it’s time to meet your other selves.”


	4. DAN

Dan didn’t know what he was expecting when he rejoined everyone in the kitchen, but this was not it. 

This universe’s version of him and Phil were draped across the countertop, drinking from glasses of water and talking to PJ. They were dressed in running gear and sweaty from their workout, which was what Dan noticed first. Before he noticed everything else. 

Phil but not Phil looked less different, but only by a small margin. His hair was up peeled back from his forehead into a quiff, which made his face look more defined and mature. His face was gaunter and his cheekbones sharper, and there was one black line tracing from under his left eye to his hairline. Tattoos spiraled up and down his muscular arms like thick, black vines. There was a silver ring peeking out from the top of his right ear and an industrial bar on his left. 

And as for Dan’s other self, his curls were piled on his head, and dyed just as white as Louise’s. His own ears were pierced as well, with metal studs and rings, and there was even a staple in his eyebrow. He had tattoos too: a grey Union Jack on his arm and something else, something bigger peeking through the collar of his tight black shirt. He had thinned out, his body more muscular and defined. Dan couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. He’d always wished he could look like that, but there was always something holding him back. He laughed darkly to himself. Guess the lack of war was the thing holding him back. 

Both of them had something distinctly _different_ about them.. Something in the curl of their lips or the dip in their brows that gave Dan the same feeling that Louise had given him that he hadn’t been able to recognize until now: this Dan and Phil were much harder and fiercer, products of this world. Dan wondered if he would have turned out the same if it had been him instead.

“Um, hello,” Dan said, for lack of anything better to say. 

This universe’s Dan and Phil just stared at them. His other self was smiling a little. 

“Well?” Jack asked from the dining room. “What do you think?”

Other Dan laughed a bit and shook his head. “Definitely not a trick. There’s no way. It’s us.”

“Your hair,” Dan blurted. 

Other Dan lifted a hand up to his curls with a small smile, as if he’d forgotten about them. “I lost a bet,” he said absentmindedly. 

Other Phil looked at his watch. “We’ve got no time. The call will start any minute,” he said brusquely. “Gemma, is the camera set up?”

Gemma snapped to attention from her spot in the back of the kitchen. “Yes, Sir. In the living room.”

“Then we should convene in there. Louise, you have the plans?”

“Yes. But Lester, the plans might be changing.”

Other Phil looked towards Dan. “We’ve got to hear from Felix. Then we’ll talk about this.”

He grabbed other Dan’s hand and pulled his into the living room, pushing past Dan and Phil to get there. Dan watched them go, something rising again in his throat. Gemma followed them, refusing to meet Dan’s eyes. Louise raised her eyebrows and beckoned him and Phil to the dining table.

“Take a seat.” She pulled the chairs out. “It’s best that you two stay off to the side.”

Dan and Phil obeyed and watched as Howell (it seemed easier to refer to their other selves the way Louise had, with their last names) leaned forward and turned on the TV. Static burst through the black. He sighed and fiddled with the camera while Lester leaned back on the couch, speaking quietly to Gemma. The rest of the group was gathered around the TV or on the couch. Dan tried to ignore the little looks from the other members of the army. 

“Why do they look like that?” Phil asked Dan. 

“What, like punk fanart?”

Phil laughed, bright and happy, the first time Dan had heard him do so since they’d woken up that morning. “Yeah, like that.” Dan almost let himself smile. 

A face appeared through the static on the screen— another young girl with glasses and short, black hair. Howell leaned back. 

“Generals Howell and Lester, good to see you,” she said like it was more of a formality than a genuine sentiment. “Our Gracious Leader regrets being unable to meet with you himself --”

“Alright Marie,” Lester interrupted. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

“‘Gracious Leader…’” Dan muttered to himself. 

Marie’s features hardened. “You’re right. We have a big problem. The West is advancing into Italy, and they’ve laid anchor. They’re set to launch an attack any day now.”

Howell’s hand curled into a fist. “You’re serious?”

“Of course,” she said. “Mr. Kjellberg recommends that you send half of your forces to eliminate the problem. The domestic Italian army is too weak to cope with the full force of the attack.”

“Very well,” said Howell. “We can manage that. But what about our attack plans? We can’t funnel all our resources into defense, or we’ve got no chance.”

“We have no chance anyway, General Howell,” Marie explained, her voice tense. “The West outnumbers us in every way, shape, and form. We have to defend our Empire, or there will be nothing left to attack with.” 

The weight of her words hit Dan. He was glad that this was an alternate world, and his heart ached for his home. This place was so… dangerous. 

“Then what do we do?” Lester asked. “We have to stop them somehow.”

Marie sighed. “For now, just send the troops to Italy. We’ll discuss from there. Is that all?”

“Just one more question.” Howell held up his finger. “You guys haven’t done any more work into alternate universe technology over there, have you?”

Marie frowned. “No, it hasn’t taken precedence. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.” Howell shrugged. “We’ll be in contact.”

“Good luck, Generals.”

“You too, Marie.” Lester leaned forward and shut off the TV, Marie’s face fading to black. 

“Should we plan for a move to Italy then?” Louise asked, as soon as the screen shut off. 

Howell looked hesitant, so Lester spoke up for him. “Yeah, get the troops together. We’ll go with them.” 

Just when Dan was starting to wonder where he and Phil would factor into this, Howell stood up and met Dan’s eyes.

“We should talk,” he said, stopping in front of Dan, touring above him. “Come on.”

Dan didn’t think he had a choice. So he and Phil found themselves back in Dan’s room, sitting at the foot of the bed as their other selves watched them from from across the room. No one was saying anything. Howell was fiddling with his eyebrow piercing. 

“So... how do we get home?” Phil started. 

“Louise told us that you’re famous?” Howell said, completely ignoring Phil. “In what way?”

“We’re not _famous_,” Dan said on instinct. “It’s just, we’re not generals or anything. We just make YouTube videos and we’re not at war with America and everything’s… normal.”

“We have different definitions of normal.” Howell pulled sat at the desk chair, drumming his fingers against his knee. Dan was starting to notice how much he was fidgeting. _Did he do that too?_

“So you’re famous, and instead of an army, you have fans?” Lester continued. “And these fans are why you yelled at Gemma and the rest of the army?”

Dan deflated guiltily. “No, it’s… I just got carried away.”

Lester narrowed his eyes. Dan’s stomach dropped just looking at him. So different, yet so similar. The look on his face was so recognizable that Dan forgot about the tattoos and piercings and guns. He was just… Phil. 

“It’s complicated,” Phil tried to intervene. “But we just want to go home. We don’t want to be involved in any way, please.”

The others shared a look. “We’re going to take you with us to Italy,” Howell said. Dan might’ve thought it was a joke, if his own eyes weren’t staring right at him so seriously. 

“What?” Dan asked, incredulous. “We don’t know what we’re doing… at all.”

“We need you for… decoys basically,” Lester admitted. “Dan and I have an opportunity with this attack that we haven’t had in a while, but you two are instrumental in it.”

“We have a chance to take out one of the West’s generals, and we need you two with us so we can pull it off,” Howell said. “Otherwise we miss a huge opportunity here.”

“Are you two willing?” Lester was staring at Dan again, eyes so big and blue. 

Dan wanted to crawl away and hide from those eyes, like they were chasing him. He wanted to crawl away and hide from all of this, from wars and Eastern Empires and this version of Phil who he knew wouldn’t be too scared to confront him. He was so _tired_ of all of it, already. And he had a feeling it was about to get much more tiring. 

“We are,” Phil answered before Dan could even think of anything to say. “We’ll do it.”

Lester nodded. “Good. We’ll set you up in the other bedroom with PJ for the night. We’ll leave at 4 AM tomorrow morning.”

Dan wanted to groan, but he couldn’t. Lester was already leaving. Now it was just him and Phil and Howell, who was watching the two of them carefully. 

“Phil if you wouldn’t mind…” Howell trailed off. Phil raised his eyebrows and stood up awkwardly. 

“Yeah, okay.” He looked at Dan one more time, as if checking that he was safe before scurrying out of the room, closing the door behind him. 

Howell scooted his chair closer to Dan. Dan crossed his arms.

“Are you trying to be intimidating?” Dan asked him. He smiled. 

“No. I’m just trying to understand you.”

“What’s there not to understand? You _are_ me.”

“Really?” Howell leaned in, his eyes flicking all over Dan’s face as though he was trying to read his thoughts. As though he _could_. “It doesn’t feel like it. The way you look at Phil, your Phil… it’s different.”

“Things aren’t the same where we’re from,” Dan said. He was surprised at how cold his voice was. “And I’m not going to hear anything else about it.”

Howell looked at him again, his face unreadable. The two of them stayed like that for a moment. It was one of the weirdest experiences Dan had ever had, staring into his own eyes. But Howell kept staring, unflinching. So Dan stared too. 

“Well,” Howell finally said. “I’ll get the blow-up mattress. Maybe you should get something to eat, you look a bit pale.”

Howell stood up and left the room. Dan leaned back, falling on the duvet, turning his nose into the comforter. This side of the bed still smelled like Phil. Dan rolled over.


	5. PHIL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW for violence and war

Phil’s other self (Other Phil? Lester? Phil didn’t know what to call him yet) kept his word. At 3:30 AM, the sky still dark and smattered with stars, someone was shaking his shoulder. 

For a second before he went to bed that night, Phil had hoped that when he closed his eyes he would open them again and be back in his home room, in his own universe. But when Lester startled him awake, Phil was on an air mattress, his face inches from the carpet, feet cold because the blanket he’d been given was too short. And in this world, the room was PJ’s. 

“Get up,” Lester said. Dan shifted from under the bed’s duvet. “I left your clothes on the bed. We’ll get you suited up with some vests. Helicopter leaves in half an hour.”

Phil’s brain felt so heavy in his skull that he barely understood what Lester was saying. He made himself sit up. Dan was groaning now.

Phil pushed the thin blankets aside, his bare legs pricking with goosebumps. There were two sets of nearly identical black clothes on the bed. Phil picked up one of the pairs of trousers, thick, combat grade trousers with pockets up and down the legs and wrinkled his nose. 

“Just put them on,” Lester said, still standing in the threshold. “And hurry up. We’re leaving soon.”

He closed the door behind him, not bothering to be quiet. At the sound of the slam, Dan startled awake, his hair ruffled and the space under his eyes dark with sleep. 

“We’ve got to get dressed now,” Phil told him, his voice low.

“I don’t want to go into an active warzone, Phil,” he said, as if he was complaining about being the one to go to the door to pick up the pizza.

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

The final outfit was the thick trousers with a slim-fitting, long-sleeved top and a belt with an empty holster. There was also a pair of thick-soled boots that laced all the way up Phil’s ankles and one of the heavy black jackets that Louise, PJ, and Gemma had. But this one had no patches. 

Phil stared at himself in the mirror after getting dressed. The loose jacket and trousers somehow made him stronger. The black made his skin look even lighter and harsher. His hair was even up in a quiff like Lester wore his, and for just a second Phil could see his other self in his own reflection. He quickly pressed it as far down as it would go without a straightener. 

Dan was dressed by the time Phil had stopped examining himself. The clothes looked strangely good on him, and Phil felt an odd combination of jealousy and attraction in the pit of his stomach as he watched Dan shrug the jacket on. 

Dan met Phil’s eyes. Phil cleared his throat, and quickly looked away. “Are you ready?” he asked.

“No.” Dan stuffed a hand in his pocket and headed for the door, his other hand lingering on the doorknob. “Maybe we can just… run away.”

“Run where?”

“Out there?” Dan backed away from the door, running his fingers through his hair. 

“You think we’ll be able to survive out there without… them?” Phil took a step towards Dan. “Especially when we look _exactly_ like them? We’ll be dead in a few days.”

“I don’t care.” Dan crossed over to Phil, clamping his hands around Phil’s arms, their faces inches apart. “I’m just fucking terrified.”

Phil’s words evaded him. “We’ll… uh, we’ll be okay.”

Dan’s grip loosened but his hands didn’t fall. “I don’t think we will be.”

“Then at least we’ll be together.”

It was clearly the wrong thing to say. Dan dropped his hands, stuffing them back into his pockets, his eyes falling to the floor. 

“Let’s go,” he said sharply after a few seconds. “They’ll be waiting.”

They were. Howell and Lester were sipping coffees, their heads pressed together behind a small laptop sitting on the kitchen counter. They had on the exact same outfits, and if it wasn’t for the massive guns strapped to their belts and the piercings and tattoos the four of them would’ve been the exact same people. 

Howell looked up, giving Phil a once over. “Looking good.” His smile brought back the same feeling in Phil’s stomach from earlier. 

“When are we leaving?” Dan asked, loudly. 

Lester frowned at his computer screen before shutting it with a _snap_. “Now. Let’s go.”

Louise, PJ, and Gemma were waiting on the roof, helicopter rotors spinning loudly. Phil held his hand up to his forehead to keep his hair from his eyes. 

Howell and Lester said a few words to Louise and PJ. They saluted, which Phil thought was a joke at first. Gemma approached Dan and Phil while Howell and Lester climbed into the helicopter. 

“Don’t be scared!” she shouted, taking Phil’s hand. “It’s not as bad as it looks!”

Phil steeled his nerves and boarded the helicopter, Dan close behind him. The cabin was tight and stuffy, and Dan and Phil, their other selves, and Gemma were squeezed into the back. Phil was pressed against the tiny window, so he could watch as he was lifted further away from the ground. He screwed his eyes shut to keep from having a panic attack.

Dan was pressed up tight against him, skin warm, even through all of their thick clothes. With his eyes shut, Phil could almost imagine they were somewhere else, like curled up on their couch at home. It didn’t do Phil any good to think about this, but he did it anyway in some kind of stroke of self-destructiveness. 

“We’re going to land in Sicily and prepare for battle once we do!” Lester shouted over the dull roar of the chopper. “Our main ports and weapon manufacturers are located there, so the West will go for those first!”

“What are we supposed to do?!” Dan shouted back. 

“You two are going to stay in the base!” Lester explained. “You’re not to leave under any circumstances. We’ll arm you in case of an emergency, but the army will keep you safe and out of harm. Hopefully the West will think that Dan and I are hanging back and heavily guarded, and we’ll be free to strike out and find their general.”

“So you promise we’ll be safe?” Dan asked. 

“We can’t promise anything, but we’ll do our best.” Howell said with a grin, like it was all some big game. Phil’s heart was pounding in his ears. 

The rest of the ride passed in silence. Even Howell and Lester were completely quiet, as if preparing themselves for what to come. At one point Phil noticed he and Lester were both methodically drumming their fingers against their knees. Phil quickly folded his own hand into a fist. 

An hour or so later, they touched down on the roof of what seemed to be a larger storage facility. Waiting for them on the roof were two young adults, a girl and a boy in their black uniforms. They saluted when Lester and Howell emerged, and gave Dan and Phil lingering stares. 

“Yes, yes, alternate selves, ooh spooky, let’s get inside, shall we?!” Howell shouted over the noise. The girl nodded stiffly, thick black hair tossing in the wind. She adjusted her grip on her gun and marched forward, leading the party from the roof.

Once the stairwell door closed behind her, Phil could finally hear again. The long haired girl swung her gun around to her back and stuck out her hand towards Phil. He took it hesitantly, her gloved hand shaking his fiercely. 

“Madison Riley, Major of the Royal Army of the Eastern Empire.” Her accent was British, and her voice steeley. 

“Phil,” Phil said in return. With her hair out of her face, Madison was gorgeous; her long hair falling over one shoulder, and sharp cheekbones framing a pair of dark eyes, so dark you couldn’t distinguish between iris and pupil. 

“This is Gio Messina, my Lieutenant,” she said while shaking Dan’s hand. The other boy nodded, his gun still pressed against his large chest, fingers wrapping around the length of it like they were meant to. 

“Major Riley,” Gemma interrupted, grasping at the back of her neck. “We should move. They’ll be laying anchor at any second.”

“You’re right.” Madison’s eyes flicked from Dan to Phil. “Let’s move.”

And they were moving again. 

Phil had noticed that everything in war was done quickly and efficiently. The way the others strode with long, fast strides, talking all the while about strategy and movements. How Madison would be in charge of protecting him and Dan, and how Lester and Howell were going to sneak through the front lines, and when. The more snippets Phil caught of the conversation, the more panicked he became, until it was too difficult to keep his breath steady. 

“Hey,” he heard Dan say from behind him. Phil stopped and gripped the stair railing, his chest rising and falling. The others kept going, the sounds of boots slapping the linoleum stairs bouncing around Phil’s brain. “Are you okay?”

Phil saw Howell look over his shoulder. Then he turned up to his own Dan’s eyes, wide, gaping, full of concern. “I’ll be fine.”

“I get if you’re not,” Dan continued, quietly, as if trying to apologize for his actions from the day before. “I’m not either.”

“I told you I’d be fine.” 

He still looked pained. “Seriously, Phil…” His hand found the top of Phil’s on the railing, as if by instinct. Rather than looking at one another, they kept their gazes focused on their hands, one on top of the other.They looked at their two hands like that, one on top of the other, instead of looking at each other. 

“I’ll be okay,” Phil said, his voice hoarse. He pulled his hand away and kept moving. 

The warehouse had an office space on its tenth floor. There was a large desk with more monitors and maps sitting below a rack of large guns. A wall of what Phil assumed were bulletproof windows looked out over a war-torn Sicilian coast. Ships as big as cruise liners skirted the coast, American flags waving from each one. The docks bustled with ant-sized uniformed soldiers, preparing their own war ships and amassing weapons. Houses and shops on the ground were torn up, burnt, or otherwise abandoned. It was the first real glimpse Phil had gotten at what had once been an abstract war, and all he wanted to do was close his eyes and go home. 

“This is where you’ll stay,” Lester told Dan and Phil. “Madison, Gio, and some more reinforcements waiting outside will protect you.”

“Switch jackets with us,” Howell said. “That way we’re unmarked.” 

They did. Lester and Howell also pressed a small pistol in each of their palms. Holding a gun gave Phil a weird feeling, like something had gone horribly wrong. 

“You’ll also need this.” Lester help up something that looked like a big, blocky iPhone. “It’s our communicator. The West can track it, so they’ll think it’s us in here.”

“But then won’t they just come to kill you?” Dan interjected. “Like you’re going to kill their general?”

“That’s what makes it dangerous,” Howell told him. “They have to think you’re us for the plan to work, and this is the safest place for you to be.”

“You’ll be okay,” Madison reiterated. “Generals, my troops are ready for command.”

Lester nodded and tapped the communicator. “Command sent.”

“Good luck Generals.” Madison saluted again as Gemma, Lester, and Howell made for the door. 

“You too, Major.” Lester gave one last look to Dan and Phil before they slipped out the door, slamming it behind them. 

“Get comfortable,” Madison said, crossing her arms and staring out the window. “We’ll be here a while.”


	6. DAN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW for use of guns, death/killing, graphic descriptions of violence and blood, vomit, and losing consciousness

An hour and a half into the mission, one of the monitors dinged loudly, startling Dan awake from the nap he had taken in one of the rolling chairs. He had spent all of the night before drifting in and out of consciousness, afraid to fall asleep for fear that someone would come into the room for fear that someone would come into the room and try to kill him in his sleep. Then there was Phil, sleeping on the air mattress below him, even though this was _his_ room and _his_ bed. And he kept making these small noises in the middle of the night, just long breaths or sighs but every time it did it felt like something was squeezing their fist around Dan’s heart.

So he spent all night staring up at the ceiling until Lester came into the room and woke them up. And now he was here, in a different country, in the middle of an active warzone, no less, watching the ships outside come alive with gunshots and explosions, wondering if his other self was out there getting stuck in the crossfire. 

“It’s from Major General Stone,” Madison said, rising to her feet. She’d been sitting on the floor polishing her handgun with a cloth, not leaving a single groove untended to. 

“Who?” Dan asked, his voice coming out groggy and low. 

“Gemma. She’s says the West has broken through the front lines.” Madison’s eyes were wide and full of white light. “They’re on their way.”

Dan rolled his chair to the window, leaning so far forward his nose pressed against the glass. On the ground, black-uniformed soldiers flitted through alleyways and empty streets, shooting at advancing ranks of other soldiers in red and blue.

“The American uniforms look like that?” Dan asked Madison, who was frantically typing something out on the keyboard. 

“They’re very patriotic,” she said without looking up. “And obnoxious.”

Phil joined Dan at the window, frowning at the scene below. “Do you think they’ll be able to get in here?”

“The door is guarded.” Madison was still typing. “And so are all of the levels. We’ll be fine.”

The popping sound from outside was getting louder. As Dan watched, one of the black- clothed soldiers was shot by an American soldier, their body splayed on the ground in a pool of blood. The American soldier stepped over the body and kept running through the street. Dan pushed his chair away from the window. 

“So what are we supposed to do?” Dan asked. 

“Nothing,” Madison said. “We’ll protect you.”

“But what if you’re incapacitated.”

“We won’t be.”

“But what _if_?”

Madison sighed, pushing herself away from her desk and crossing to Dan. She snatched the gun Howell had given him from the holster in Dan’s belt. “You use this.” She clicked the safety off and handed it back to Dan. “There. Just point and shoot, and maybe you’ll get them before they get you.”

Dan was still trying to swallow the fact that he might have to shoot a gun when there was a loud _bang_ from a few floors below them, followed by an onslaught of gunshots. Madison slung her gun around from her shoulder, hoisting it in her hands. Gio snapped to attention, pointing his own weapon at the closed door, as if someone could burst in at any second.

“What was that?” Phil asked weakly. 

“They’ve infiltrated.” Madison said calmly, loading the gun with a sharp click. “Get ready.”

“Oh God,” Phil moaned, his knees buckling and his palms landing on the carpet. “We’re gonna die.”

“We’re not gonna _die_,” Madison scoffed, as if the idea was totally crazy. “Gio and I are professionals.”

“You’re teenagers!” Dan cried, his hands lacing through his curls. “You can’t be older than twenty years old, and you’re going to defend us in a _war_!” 

Madison looked Dan dead in the eyes. “Yes, we are.”

They waited in absolute silence after that. Phil kept looking over at Dan like he wanted to say something, but changed his mind before he did. Madison and Gio kept their gazes firm on the door, weapons at face level, poised to run. Dan huddled in the corner of the room, as far away from the door as he could get, his back pressed against the glass. Every time he looked at the ground below it felt like it was closer, like he was already plummeting slowly to his death. 

The gunshot sounds kept getting closer and closer, until they sounded like they were right outside the door. Someone shouted, another round went off. Something slammed against the door, startling everyone but Gio, who remained steely-eyed and focused. Then they slammed again. And again. Gio took a step back, and just in time, too. The door flew off its hinges, revealing two tall figures in black, dragging a blue and red hostage behind them. 

“Oh thank God,” Madison breathed, letting her weapon drop. 

“Stay on guard,” Howell barked. “I don’t know how many are behind us.”

Lester dragged the hostage over the threshold and tossed him to the floor. Dan guessed it was the general they had meant to kill. 

“You didn’t finish the job?” Madison asked, her gun up again and pointed at the empty door frame.

“Couldn’t.” Lester went to work untying the gag around the man’s head. “He had too much valuable information.”

“Like what?” Phil blurted. The American general looked at Phil, wide-eyed. 

“I guess we’re going to find out, won’t we?” Lester told him, a dark smile cutting through his bruised and bloody face. He loosened the gag until it fell from the American general’s face. The man took a deep breath. 

“Do you know who we are?” Howell asked him, squatting in front of him, eyes fluttering across his face. 

“My bigger question is who the hell are they?” the general replied, gesturing his head towards Dan and Phil.

“Not a problem, for the time being,” Lester continued. “We want to know about this.”

Lester pulled a small piece of paper from his pocket and carefully unfolded it, revealing a typed message and singed edges.

“What’s Project X?” Howell asked, leaning closer into the general. “And why is it so secret that you had to burn the evidence?”

The general didn’t respond. He met Howell’s eyes, cold and unrevealing. Howell sighed, pulled back his arm, and planted his fist square on the general’s nose.  
Dan stumbled back in alarm as the general tipped over, the back of his head hitting the carpet. Phil’s hand flew to his mouth. 

“What’s Project X, general?” Howell asked again, his boot colliding with the general’s ribs this time. “I don’t want to ask again.”

Dan could only watch in horror, like a car crash he couldn’t pull his eyes away from. He started to feel his mind slip from his body as he watched this man, this man with his face, kick at someone lying helplessly on the ground until he wept. 

“Stop it!” Phil shouted eventually, when the general was curled on the ground in a fetal position, twitching every few seconds. It was the most ferocity Dan had heard from him the entire day. 

“Phil…” Lester started, but Howell held up a hand. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Howell said. “He’s ready to talk.”

“It’s a weapon,” the general whispered “Nuclear. One of the last ones left.”

“It’s still being made then?” Lester asked, his arms crossed in front of his chest. 

“Yes,” the general said. “There’s still work to be done. And the President has dedicated the majority of her efforts to developing another technology as well.”

“Which is…?” Howell asked.

The general rose, propping his body shakily on his forearm. He turned to face Dan, their eyes locking. Blood was pouring from his broken nose, dripping from his chin to the floor, rust colored stains pooling on the shabby grey carpeting. “Multiverse travel,” he finally said. “Project Alpha, it’s called. But that’s not finished either. I don’t know how it possibly could’ve done… this.”

“They’re none of your concern,” Lester reiterated, as if he had picked up on how terrified Dan felt. “Where is all of this housed?”

“The labs in Los Angeles.”

Lester nodded. “Is there anything else she’s working on that we should know about?”

“That’s all I know,” the general whimpered. “That’s all she would tell me.”

Howell nodded, jaw clenched. “Well, thank you general.”

Howell stepped forward and pulled a pistol from his belt. Before Dan could even think to look away, the general collapsed again, a hole in the back of his head. Howell slid the pistol back into his belt, eyes unchanging. 

Dan turned around and emptied his stomach onto the floor, retching until there wasn’t anything left. Somewhere in the back of his head he could hear Phil muttering “Oh God” and a string of curses. There were other voices too, his other self saying that they should return to Britain, Madison promising to drive back the rest of the American troops. But all he could hear was that ringing in his ears, the gunshot playing over and over again, the picture of the helpless American general flopping onto the floor like a doll. 

Dan sat down, clutching his temples, his vision foggy. He felt someone’s hand on his shoulder, the faint smell of bergamot washing over him, and heard someone trying to call his name, before he closed his eyes, lolling backwards until he hit the ground, just like the general. 

He drifted back into consciousness sometime during the helicopter ride back. His eyes still closed, he heard Phil ask, “That ‘she’ that the general was talking about, who is it?”

Dan’s other self replied. “The President of the United Western Republic, Jenna Marbles.”


	7. PHIL

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is sort of short, sorry about that! But if you're desperate for more, go ahead and check out the first chapter again (not the prologue, the first chapter), I recently edited it down to its final form so it's a little different and a little more exciting! I also just posted a fic called Outlawed that I posted on my tumblr a few months ago, so check that out too!

Dan woke up for real later that night, splayed on the sofa while Louise patted his head gently with a damp cloth. The sun had fallen on the ride back, leaving Phil to think about what he had just seen in the dark and alone. But now Dan was back, _his_ Dan was back, not the one sitting at the table behind him, shoveling pasta into his mouth like he hadn’t just killed a man in cold blood. 

“What happened?” Dan mumbled, his eyelids still droopy. 

“You were out,” Louise said, wiping the hair out of his eyes and slicking it back onto his head. “For quite some time, apparently.”

“I was tired,” Dan said, so matter of factly. 

“I thought you were dead,” Phil told him, just as a matter of factly. 

Dan swallowed. “Well, I’m not. Just a little out of it, that’s all.” He tried for a smile, but it looked more like a grimace. 

“Now that you’re up,” said Lester from his spot at the table, “we need to talk about what our next move is.”

“I think our next move is to find the Project Alpha thing,” Dan said, pushing himself up. “Then Phil and I can go home. I don’t think this world is good for me.”

“No chance,” Howell said, without hesitation. “Too dangerous.”

“More dangerous than what you just made us do?” Phil protested. 

“Yes, a lot more.” Howell’s voice was grave. “The technology is in Los Angeles, the capital of the Western Republic. If anyone saw us there, they would kill us on sight. Besides, it’s not even worth the risk. You weren’t near the machine when you were sent here, so who says being near it will bring you back?”

“But there’s a chance,” Dan pleaded. “Just a little one, at least.”

“It’s just not worth it,” Howell insisted. “It’s too fucking dangerous.”

“But what about the weapon?” Louise said. “You said Jenna was developing a nuclear weapon?”

“Yeah, I guess we should start cleaning out those bunkers,” Howell said. “Why do you ask?”

“Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, go stop that?” Louise stood, a hand on her hip. “If she launches the nuke, we’re done for. Even if we do get to the bunkers in time,this war is lost.”

“Louise,” Lester said. “You know the kind of people she has over there. You really think that we can beat them all? Especially dragging those two around?”

“What kind of people?” Phil interrupted. 

Howell swiped his hand through the air, his eyes full of fear. “It doesn’t matter. We’re not going to meet them.”

“She’s not the only one with assassins,” Louise said, raising her eyebrows. 

Howell and Lester shared a look. 

“They can’t stay here,” Louise said softly. “Look at them.”

Phil tried to look as pathetic as he could. It wasn’t that hard; he had never felt more useless and terrified in his life. Howell frowned when he met his eyes, like he was disappointed at what he saw. 

“It’s late,” Lester said, glancing at the clock on the wall. “We’ll discuss it in the morning.”

Louise let a long breath out of her nose. Phil couldn’t tell if it was a good sign or not. Lester and Howell stood up and headed for their bedroom.

“You two should sleep too,” Louise said. “Do you need help getting up, Dan?”

“No, I’m fine,” he said, swinging his long legs over the side of the couch. “Thanks, Louise.”

“Yeah,” Phil told her. “For everything.”

Louise smiled lightly, and for a second, even though she was wearing her uniform and all her guns, she was their Louise again. Maybe she always was.

“Let me know if you start feeling bad again. I’ll be downstairs.”

“I will,” Dan said. 

Louise looked over the two of them one last time before nodding and heading for the den, her boots knocking against the hardwood stairs. Dan and Phil were alone. 

Dan tried to push himself up onto his feet, his legs shaking.

“You sure you’re okay?” Phil asked, holding out an arm. Dan stared at his arm before deciding to take it, his fingers pressing into Phil’s skin.

“I’ll be fine. Just kind of wobbly.”

Phil helped Dan down the hall and into PJ’s bed, which had been made with fresh linens. Through the wall, he could hear muffled, urgent words, like Howell and Lester were talking about something important. Phil’s chest seized up.

“I’ve got to go to the toilet,” Phil said quickly, ducking out of the room, trying not to blush. He crept over to the other door, pressing his ear to the wood. He could just barely hear Howell and Lester’s voices, muffled but still there.

“... be able to survive,” Howell was saying. 

“Maybe none of us will, if she uses that weapon,” Lester replied, his voice strained. “I don’t know what the right move is here.”

“Let’s sleep on it. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Yeah, okay.” Lester sounded tired.

“Hey. I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Phil pushed himself away from the door, feeling worse than he did before he started listening. He stumbled the rest of the way to the toilet and leaned over the sink, staring at himself in the mirror until the face reflected back at him didn’t look like his own anymore. Maybe it was time to go to bed. 

When he came back into the room, Dan had already turned the light off. Phil groped for his air mattress, and fell onto the blankets with a sigh. He was going to close his eyes when he heard Dan’s voice from the bed. 

“You can come up here. If you want.”

Phil sat up. “What?”

“I said you can come sleep on the bed if you want. It’s probably more comfortable.”

Phil’s heart was beating very fast again. He lifted himself off of the air mattress gingerly and onto the side of the bed, sliding under the covers next to Dan. Even though they weren’t touching he still felt warm. And safe. It felt… like home. And Phil really wanted to be home. 

“How did we get here?” Phil whispered, staring up at the ceiling. 

“I don’t know.” Dan shifted onto his side. “But we’re stuck here now, I guess.”

Phil turned over so they were facing each other, Dan’s face barely distinguishable in the dark. “At least we have each other.”

“Yeah.”

They stayed like that for a few seconds, trying to forget the war that was going on around them, both too scared to do anything. Phil reached a cautious hand towards Dan’s cheek, his face warm underneath his fingertips. Emboldened, Dan leaned forward until their lips were touching.

It had been a long time, but Phil had forgotten what it was like to kiss Dan Howell. He could never forget what Dan felt like, how he knew Phil better than anyone else ever had. And maybe he was just touch-starved, but it felt like magic. Dan pushed himself on top of Phil, his mouth moving frantically and desperately. Phil reached for the hem of Dan’s shirt and pulled it over his head. 

“You sure?” Phil asked. 

“Yeah.”

And for the first time since he’d woken up in this strange world two mornings before, everything finally felt _right_.


	8. DAN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mentions of weapons

Dan woke up early the next morning with Phil next to him. Again.

This time though, Dan knew exactly what had happened, and the pit in the bottom of his stomach seemed even bigger now. He pushed himself out of the bed, collecting his clothes off of the floor and shrugging them on. He left the room, closing the door carefully as to not wake Phil up.

Howell was making coffee in the kitchen, with Louise, PJ, and Lester eating breakfast. Dan walked down the hallway, rubbing his head.

“Morning!” Louise said cheerfully. “Feeling better?”

“What? Oh. Yeah, I’m alright.” Dan took a seat at the table, propping his head up in his hands. “Could I get some coffee?”

Louise slid a mug towards him. “Take mine. I haven’t drank any yet.”

Lester lifted his mug of tea to his lips. “Your shirt’s on backwards, Dan.”

“What?”

“Forget it.” Lester smiled evilly

“Have you made a decision yet?” Dan asked, trying to change the subject.

“Yeah, have you?” Phil said, coming up from behind Dan.

Dan shifted his eyes down to his coffee, trying to look anywhere but at Phil.

Lester’s eyebrows were at his hairline. “We have made a decision. We’ll take you to Los Angeles.”

Dan breathed a sigh of relief. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.” Howell slid next to Lester. “But you’re not going in there unprepared. You’ll need to train first. For a few days at least. And then we’ll sneak into the city.”

“Train?” Dan said, incredulous. “But… how?”

“We’ll teach you how to shoot a gun and defend yourself,” Lester told them. “Otherwise you’ll die as soon as we step foot in America.”

“I’m not killing anyone,” Phil insisted. “I’d rather die.”

“Hopefully it won’t come to that.” Howell’s gaze was icy. “But you’ll have to be ready anyway.”

“So how are you going to sneak us in?” Dan asked. “How would you even know how to do that?”

Howell shot a look at Lester, who nodded. “We’re more than generals,” Howell began. “We’re trained in espionage too. We do this kind of stuff all the time.”

“What kind of stuff?” Phil asked.

“Like sneak into America and kill higher up officials,” Lester clarified. “It’s just what we do.”

Everyone was quiet. Dan stirred some cream into his coffee, the sound of the spoon clinking against his glass louder than it should’ve been.

“You’re… maniacs,” Phil said, finally. “All of you. You’re insane. This is all… insane.”

“Phil…” Lester started. “It’s war. It’s just the way it is.”

“But it’s not supposed to be this way,” Phil muttered, burying his head in his hands.

“Well, it is this way,” Howell said. “And I’m sorry, but you’re here for now, as soon as we can get you home."

Howell’s hand hovered over Phil’s wrist for a second before he set it down gently. Phil looked up at him, cheeks red.

Howell cleared his throat. “It’ll be okay.”

Dan frowned, crossing his arms and leaning back into his chair. “We’ll train. We’ll do whatever. We just want to get home.”

“Right.” Howell lifted up his hand. “Okay, well, we’ll have to take you to Jack’s warehouse and get you some weapons. Then we’ll start the training.”

Lester downed the rest of his coffee. “You two should get dressed.”

After Louise dropped a fresh pile of black and white clothes onto PJ’s bed, Dan and Phil were again alone in PJ’s room. Dan wondered where PJ might be sleeping. In the den with Louise? Maybe it was something he should’ve thought about earlier, but now his brain was reaching for anything to think about other than Phil and the fact that they had sex the night before for the first time in four years.

“Do you want to –” Phil started.

“No,” Dan interrupted quickly, refusing to meet his eyes.

“Okay.” Phil grabbed his clothes from the bed. “I’ll just go change in the toilet.”

“Okay.”

Phil closed the door behind him softly. Dan sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed and falling back until his body hit the mattress. He closed his eyes, but all he could see when he did was Phil staring at him through the dark, his hands all over Dan’s body…

Dan pried his eyes open, shaking his head. He sat up and looked at the clothes Louise had brought him. Another tight shirt, this one white and pressed, and a different pair of jeans that looked more like something he would actually wear. He put the clothes on and found a black jumper in PJ’s wardrobe. When he looked in the mirror he actually felt like himself, even with his pair of combat boots. He quite liked the boots, in fact. Maybe he would get a pair when he got home.

_If he got home_. Dan swallowed the thought. Him dying was a possibility he didn’t want to confront yet.

Howell, Lester, Dan, and Phil went out into London later that morning, heavily armed.

“London isn’t dangerous anymore,” Howell explained when they stepped out the door of the apartment building and into the biting autumn air. “But it’s better safe than sorry.”

Howell didn’t seem safe or sorry with the handgun he was flipping around in his hands, clicking the safety on and off while he was fidgeting. Dan stuffed his hands into his jean pockets, his breath a warm cloud in front of his face. He took the chance to look around his city and see what had changed.

Dan and Phil hadn’t lived in the busiest part of London in their own world, but now it truly seemed like a graveyard. Windows were blown out, car doors were pried open, and the facades of some buildings were even burnt or otherwise destroyed. The entire city was silent and empty.

“You said it’s not dangerous _anymore_?” Dan asked, gandering at a flipped over car in the middle of the street. “What used to make it dangerous?”

“It was one of the first places hit when the war started in earnest,” Howell explained, stepping over a pile of glass. “Most citizens fled, and the original military pushed the Western troops back. Then we took over once they were gone, and London became a glorified military base.”

“What do you mean ‘gone?’” Dan asked. “What happened to them.”

“They all died in the war,” Howell said, shrugging like it was obvious. “So we had to fill in the gaps. Both here and in the West, too. Now we’re the military. We’re the only ones left.”

“It doesn’t bother you that most of your military is just kids now?”

“It’s fucked up, sure,” Howell said. “But what other choice is there?”

Jack’s weapons shop was a few blocks down the road from Howell and Lester’s flat, and Dan would’ve thought it was just another abandoned building if they didn’t stop right in front of it.

Lester stepped onto the porch and knocked, taking a step back afterwards to get within view of the security camera perched in the doorframe. “Just us, Jack,” he told the camera, giving it a wave.

Dan could hear a pair of boots clumping through the house, and Jack swung open the door seconds later, dressed in a tank top and jeans, a far cry from the battle outfit Dan had seen her in previously.

“Wow, it’s cold out there,” she said, rubbing her bare arms. “Come on, you four, let’s get you inside.”

Jack ushered them into her building and up the stairs to her flat. Dan didn’t know what he was expecting from a teenage weapon seller, but the flat was much cozier and even homier then Dan would’ve expected. The front room had a couch, a coffee table, and a pair of armchairs. Everything was washed with faded yellow lights. There was a gas fire crackling in the hearth.

“Tea?” Jack asked, disappearing into the kitchen.

“Yeah, for all four of us,” Lester answered, settling into one of the armchairs. He picked up something lying on the coffee table that Dan hadn’t noticed, a huge machete with a blade the size of Dan’s forearm. “This knife is impressive.”

“I keep it around to intimidate the customers,” Jack said cheerfully, reentering with four mugs balanced in her arms. “I assume you’re here to buy?”

“Just for them,” Howell said, jerking his chin towards Dan and Phil as he bobbed his tea bag in his drink. “They need some guns that they can learn how to shoot.”

“What for?” Jack asked, moving her hands to her hips. “You’re not taking them back into a warzone, are you?”

“No,” Howell said. “We’re taking them to the West.”

“To the West? Why?”

“We think Jenna’s got the technology that brought them here,” Lester told her. “And she’s working on some kind of nuke that we should shut down, also. Lots to do.”

“We’d better get to work, then.” Jack clapped her hands together ceremoniously. “Come on, everything’s upstairs.”

The upstairs of Jack’s flat was _definitely_ what Dan was expecting of a teenage weapon seller. Guns, knives, and even swords hung on the walls, the silver and metal glinting in the fluorescent light. Buckets of ammo were crammed in the corner, and bulletproof vests hung on training dummies on the back wall.

“So what are you looking for?” Jack asked, leaning over a desk she had situated in the back. Dan looked into the clear display case. It was full of spiked knuckle rings. He leaned back.

“Just some handguns they can learn to shoot with,” Howell said, running a hand through his white curls.

Jack nodded and ducked down, coming back up with two small black guns. “Will these work?”

“Perfect,” Howell said, picking one up and studying it in the light.

“Maybe they should take these, too.” Jack slid a pair of knives across the desk. “They might come in handy.”

One of them had a simple leather handle and a clean, sharpened blade. The other one looked more well worn, with a swirling design etched into the metal. Dan picked up the designed one, the hilt soft in his hand.

“Maybe you’re right,” Dan said, surprised to hear the words come out of his mouth. His pointer finger traced one of the swirls on the knife.

“That one’s called Heartbreaker,” Jack said. “Be careful with it.”

She grabbed the knife back from Dan and slid both of them into their sheaths, pushing them onto the pile with the guns. “Well, you’re all set,” she said. “Use them well.”

“We’ll try our best.” Howell dumped the weapons into his duffel back. “Thanks Jack.”

“Anytime.”

“Where are we going now?” Phil asked, his eyes shifting from one side of the room to the other, as if expecting someone to pop out at him.

Howell grinned, slinging the back over his shoulder. “Training.”


	9. PHIL

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW FOR: use of guns, physical violence (fist fighting), loss of consciousness

Phil learned very quickly into their training session that he was rotten with a gun. 

He didn’t know why he was expecting it to be so easy. Maybe because TV shows and movies didn’t give a glimpse into the less glamorous side of shooting a gun, like the fact that the recoil was sometimes so strong it threw your arms back so far you thought for certain they were broken. And that because of the recoil, no matter how closely you aimed you could never hit your target. Everything was also so loud, even with the headphones Howell had given him. Phil thought the ringing would never leave his ears. 

Howell and Lester tried to teach them how to load the magazines quickly, in case of an emergency, which Phil was bad at as well. His fingers would start shaking with concentration, and he would drop the bullets every time. He was so frustrated he wanted to throw everything onto the floor and submit to his inevitable death. 

The worst part was that Dan was kind of good at it. He did it all with a grimace on his face, like it hurt him just as much as it hurt Phil, but he could actually hit the targets. And his arms were strong enough to absorb most of the recoil. Phil could’ve sworn he even saw Howell nod approvingly when Dan fired off another shot that hit the edge of the target. 

Phil narrowed his gaze back onto the target in front of him, trying to stare unwaveringly from the dot in the middle. He held the gun up and straightened his arms, tensing his legs to prepare for the recoil. His finger moved to squeeze the trigger when a warm hand on his back stopped him. 

“Try standing straighter.” Howell’s breath was hot in his ear. His fingers grazed Phil’s shoulder blades. “And keep it tight here.”

Phil could feel his face grow red as he shifted his shoulders back and straightened his spine. He pressed the trigger of the gun, trying harder than he ever had to absorb the recoil. And it worked. The bullet went a bit over the target, but Phil didn’t fall back or stumble. Phil smiled.

“I did it!” he said, maybe louder than it warranted. “That was good, right?”

Howell was smirking. “Yeah, it was pretty good.”

From next to Phil, Dan fired off five consecutive shots, each one coming within inches from the center of the target. 

Lester raised an eyebrow. “Maybe that’s enough shooting for today,” he suggested.

“But we’re not nearly good enough,” Dan said. “How are we supposed to survive out there, we’re horrible at this!”

“You’re pretty good,” Phil said, trying to be helpful. 

“Not good enough,” Dan insisted. “I’m not dying before I can get home. Neither of us are.”

“We’ll go back to shooting once we’re done with the self-defense portion of our training,” Howell explained. “You might not always have your guns. You should learn how to throw a punch, too. Come on.”

Phil set his gun down and followed Lester and Howell out through the back door of the shooting range. The entire complex was bigger than Phil thought it was, as Lester pushed open a heavy door to reveal an entire training arena with punching bags, boxing rinks, and gloves hanging from racks on the wall. 

“Nice place,” Dan grunted. “But I don’t think I’m going to be very good at this.”

“No one thinks they’re going to be good until you try it.” Lester pulled a pair of long strips of fabric from his pocket and went to work wrapping them around his knuckles. “Dan and I will show you a few basic forms, and then you two can practice on each other, if you’re ready.”

“I’m not _punching_ him,” Phil said indignantly. 

“Oh come on,” Howell said. “Don’t pretend like you haven’t ever wanted to.”

Lester finished wrapping his hands and pulled his hoodie over his head, throwing it to the ground. He was wearing a vest, which Phil had always wished he could pull off, but Phil’s arms definitely weren’t as muscular and filled out as Lester’s. He made his way to the ring, ducking under the rope. 

Howell flexed his fingers and took his place across from Lester. 

“Watch carefully,” Lester said, raising his fists. “Your life could depend on it.”

Dan stepped forward and crossed his arms. Phil bit his lip, nervous about his turn. 

Howell and Lester were circling each other, looking for an opening. Their eyes looked different now, narrowed with concentration and so calculating. It was like they didn’t see each other as _each other_ anymore, but like a target instead, no different from the one Phil was just shooting at. 

Howell was the first one to strike, his fist launching at the side of Lester’s face, right off the bat. Lester’s own arm shot up impossibly fast, blocking Howell’s fist. 

“First lesson!” Lester called out, keeping his eye trained on Howell. “People will always give it away when they’re about to strike, whether it’s in a shift of their weight or their stance. Always be watching.”

As he said it, Lester threw his own fist at Howell’s side. Howell dodged, grinning, and fastened his fingers around Lester’s wrist.

Phil tried his best to follow the rest of the fight, but Howell and Lester moved so fluidly and fast it was impossible to catch anything other than their overall fighting style. Phil noticed that Howell was much more impulsive and aggressive, always the first one to lunge whenever there was an opening. While Lester was composed and patient, using Howell’s brashness against him. 

The fight ended with Lester bending one of Howell’s arms behind his back, Howell wincing as Lester tightened his grip. 

“So there,” Lester said, letting go of Howell. “Now you two try.”

“I don’t…” Phil started, but Lester held up a hand.

“Just _try_.”

Phil took a deep breath and ducked under the ropes around the ring. He flexed his fingers anxiously while Dan took his own place across from him, awkwardly shuffling until he had his left foot in front of his right and his fists in front of his chest. 

Phil had been avoiding looking at Dan all day, but now that he was supposed to, he looked for a long time, trying to see anything that could help him if this were a real fight. Dan was taller and a bit bigger than Phil, but not enough to give Phil any type of speed advantage, or Dan any type of strength one. He held his arms out haphazardly, like he wasn’t sure what he was doing, but Phil didn’t know what he was doing either. He supposed Dan’s tight shirt might limit his mobility, and his hesitancy to hit might slow him down, but other than that Phil had nothing except a hope that this could all be over soon. 

“You ready to begin?” Howell asked. 

Dan nodded. Phil cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

“Whenever you’re ready.” Howell spread his arm as if inviting them to start. 

Just like Howell, Dan struck first, taking a step forward almost immediately and throwing a slow-moving fist towards Phil’s shoulder. Phil dodged it easily, stepping to his right, which turned out to be a mistake. Dan stepped forward again, this time going in with his stronger left arm, his knuckles colliding with Phil’s forearm. 

“Ow!” Phil hissed. A flash of regret filled Dan’s eyes, and Phil took advantage of it, aiming what he was pretty sure was an uppercut at Dan’s stomach. 

Dan doubled over, clutching his middle and coughing like he was about to vomit. Phil stared at his own hand, trying to connect what just happened to what he just did. 

Dan stumbled back to his feet, teeth gritted, his eyes full of so much unmistakable anger that Phil felt too scared to move. “Wait,” Phil said, holding up a hand. “Dan.”

But Dan wasn’t listening. Before Phil could open his mouth again, Dan’s fist had connected with his jaw, knocking Phil to the ground, his skull exploding with fiery pain. He thought he heard Howell, or maybe Lester, say “Woah!” but everything, even the sounds around him, seemed blurry. 

Phil’s head collided with the mat on the floor, and Dan was on top of him, pinning Phil’s wrists at his sides. Dan’s upper lip curled back, his breath coming out in short, desperate pants. Phil tried to scramble away but Dan was too heavy and too strong, and Phil’s fear was almost as paralyzing as his pounding head. 

And then, as if a switch had flipped, Dan’s eyes softened, and his mouth drifted open. His grip on Phil’s wrists seemed to loosen. But by then it was too late. Phil, acting on instinct he didn’t think he had in him, brought his knee up behind Dan’s back, hitting him square in the back of the head. 

Dan’s eyes rolled back and he slumped over, chest falling against Phil’s face. 

“Shit,” Phil muttered into Dan’s shirt, trying to push him off. Howell was at his side, lifting Dan’s body so Phil could push himself away. “Oh, fuck.”

“He’ll be fine,” Howell said, but his eyebrows were furrowed. “You hit him hard. That’ll definitely leave a welt.”

“He hit me too!” Phil protested, bringing his fingers up to his jaw. The came back red with blood. “It was just self defense.”

“Yeah, I know.” Howell laid Dan’s head down carefully onto the mat. “You two were a lot more... willing to go for it than we expected.” 

Phil bit at his thumbnail as Lester draped a wet cloth onto Dan’s forehead. “Don’t worry,” Lester said. “It’s good. At least you’re more prepared for the field than we thought.”

Phil leaned his head back against the rope, letting his eyes fall close, his heart beating in sync with the pounding in his head. “I can’t believe I did that.”

“That’s just war,” Howell said, his voice sounding far away. 

“Yeah, but I can’t believe I did it to him.”


End file.
